Chapter One – The Return

The bed was too big.

It always had been.

Isabella lay on her side, facing the empty half that smelled faintly of Adriano’s cologne. It clung to the sheets the way his presence clung to her life—cold, expensive, inescapable. Outside, the wind rattled against the windowpanes of the De Luca mansion, a low whisper that filled the silence he’d left behind.

He wouldn’t come back tonight. She knew that.

She had known it long before the door closed behind him.

The clock on the wall ticked softly—eleven past midnight. The city outside never slept, but this house existed in a different time—its own cruel rhythm, ruled by duty, control, and fear.

She closed her eyes, and the memories came uninvited.

The wedding had been beautiful.

Lavish. Sacred. A performance staged for Chicago’s elite—the perfect union between two of the oldest Italian bloodlines still standing.

She remembered the flowers. Thousands of white roses, imported from Naples. Her father had insisted.

And Adriano… God, she had thought he was everything.

He had looked at her once—just once—during the ceremony, and she’d believed that gaze meant something. It had been cool, unreadable, but in her naive hope, she saw devotion where there was only calculation.

He had kissed her hand. He had smiled for the photographs. He had whispered “sei bellissima” in a voice that made her heart stumble.

And that was all it took.

The first night, he didn’t touch her. Not out of respect. He simply didn’t care to. He slept on his side of the bed, back turned, his breathing steady and distant. She had stayed awake until dawn, waiting for something—an explanation, a word, even anger. But there was only silence.

By the end of the first month, she’d learned how to live in it.

Every morning, Caterina De Luca would summon her to breakfast. Not with warmth, not even politeness—just expectation.

“Sit straight. Speak when spoken to. Don’t embarrass my son.”

Caterina never raised her voice, but her eyes did the cutting.

Isabella’s mother-in-law had been born for this world: graceful, manipulative, sharp enough to slice through anyone who didn’t fit. And Isabella—sweet, too honest, too trusting—was a misfit in a house that thrived on secrets.

She had tried to win her over, at first. Bringing flowers to the dining room, cooking traditional dishes she remembered from her own family, smiling through insults. But Caterina saw through kindness as if it were weakness.

“You’ll never be one of us,” she’d said one morning, her tone almost tender. “You don’t have the blood for it.”

Isabella hadn’t understood what that meant then. Not fully.

But she would.

Because the De Lucas weren’t just a family—they were a legacy, bound by ancient loyalties and unspoken codes. And she, the daughter of the man who had once betrayed the Morettis, was a tolerated inconvenience.

A necessary alliance.

A peace offering.

Adriano never said it aloud, but she could feel it in every gesture.

The way his gaze passed through her at dinners.

The way he introduced her to their associates—his hand light on her back, not affectionate, just possessive.

The way he would speak to her in public, measured, polite, but his eyes were always distant.

He was perfection sculpted from ice.

And yet—sometimes, late at night, when he’d come home from a meeting, his shirt undone and his expression tired—there had been a flicker. Something behind his eyes. Something that might have been humanity.

Once, months into their marriage, he’d found her in the garden at dawn. She had been barefoot, the hem of her nightgown soaked in dew.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he’d asked.

She had shaken her head. “It’s too quiet.”

He’d stood there for a long time, watching the sunrise with her, saying nothing. For a second, just one, she thought he’d reached for her hand. But then he turned away, muttered something about work, and walked back inside.

She’d never seen him look at the sunrise again.

Now, lying in the dark, Isabella’s chest ached with the weight of all those almost-moments.

The kindness that never lasted.

The promises that were never spoken.

The love that had never existed.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand—a message, late, from an unknown number. Her heart stuttered.

She reached for it, hesitated.

Unknown:

He’s not who you think he is. And she’s not just an old friend.

Isabella’s blood ran cold.

She sat up, eyes fixed on the glowing screen, the shadows shifting around her. A faint reflection in the mirror caught her gaze—her own face, pale and hollow, framed by the darkness of the room.

She didn’t reply. She couldn’t.

Because part of her already knew.

Gianna Moretti wasn’t just an old friend. And Adriano wasn’t just a husband.

The thought struck like lightning—bright, burning, impossible to ignore.

She pressed the phone against her chest and lay back down, staring at the ceiling.

Her mind replayed the past two years in flashes: Caterina’s warnings, Adriano’s absence, the whispers that followed her wherever she went.

Everything suddenly aligned.

The business dinners that turned into secret meetings.

The quiet tension when the name “Moretti” was mentioned.

The way Adriano had looked at Gianna tonight, as if the world around them didn’t exist.

She swallowed hard, tears stinging her eyes, but refusing to fall.

It wasn’t heartbreak that filled her—it was fury.

Fury at herself for believing.

Fury at him for lying.

Fury at all the years she’d wasted being silent, obedient, small.

Outside, thunder cracked over the lake. The storm rolled in, fierce and alive.

Isabella turned onto her side, the sheets cold against her skin. She closed her eyes, but she didn’t sleep.

Tomorrow, she decided, she would start watching him.

Not as a wife.

As something else entirely.

Something Adriano De Luca had never seen coming.